Following your Instincts
by Cstorm86
Summary: Inukag Au. Kagome has a gut feeling that she needs to be somewhere else. But where is this feeling leading her? Why is she listening to this strange sensation? And will she return safely?


This is a late Christmas present to my friend Alannada. She has been a huge supporter of mine since I started writing, and I really appreciate her being my own personal cheerleader. Thank you for being amazing, dear. I hope you enjoy this, and I hope everyone else does too.

Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters herein. I just wanted to borrow them.

The sky is a beautiful blue, and the weather is unusually warm for Autumn. Normally she sits at her small table in her studio apartment to work on homework, but she couldn't stand the feeling of being cooped up today for some reason. So, Kagome is lying in the grass on a nice warm fall day. She has a nice soft blanket beneath her and she is reading her schoolbook and working on her homework.

Movement catches her eye and she takes a quick peek thinking she is going to see a bird taking flight from the tree line. As she looks up she sees a figure moving in the clouds instead. At first look it appears human, but then it vanishes behind one of the puffy clouds. She can't seem to stop looking, searching for whatever her eyes had spotted the instant before, and after a few seconds a completely different figure comes out of the other side. It resembles a giant white dog. She almost thinks it's her eyes playing tricks on her, but something in her is almost pulling her. She wants to blink. To clear her eyes and make sure that there isn't some logical explanation for this, but she can't. Her body seems to be refusing every order she gives it.

She doesn't realize she has stood up and is walking until her feet hit the gravel of the parking lot. The dog has vanished but she needs to know where. She finally snaps back grabs her books and supplies and put them in her car. It was headed to the other side of the forest and she can't get there easily by car so she locks the doors and starts hiking. She's walked these woods hundreds of times especially after finals or big exams she had that worried her. She's mapped out a pretty good pathway that will get her at least most of the way.

Unfortunately, it's easy to lose your way in the forest and she didn't bring any water or anything, not expecting an impromptu journey. But her body is pulling her, and the further the creature seems to get the more painful the pull becomes. She picks up the pace and tries to alleviate the stinging sensation.

After an hour passes she feels like she has barely gotten any closer and now in addition to the painful pull her legs are starting to ache. She slows her pace a bit and the stinging sensation doesn't worsen, which is at least a good sign, right? Of course not, she scolds herself. She's walking in the forest to Kami knows where and she didn't even bring a real jacket. It's much cooler in the forest than in the beautiful field where she was sitting and studying. What was she thinking? Does she really have that little self control? She is following some sort of gut feeling, and she's more likely to break her neck in these woods than to find out what the creature was, let alone why she felt the urge to follow it. She never acted recklessly like this. What was she thinking?

She slows for a minute and stretches her back, pulling her arms high above her head. The stinging pull is starting to fade as well, and the kinks have worked themselves out in her muscles, when she reaches the point where the path starts to turn to head back toward the park. She's on the biggest loop they have at this park, but she's never gone passed this point. She takes a deep breath and steps into the underbrush. She has no idea what may be out here, but she knows something is pulling her this way.

She tries and fails not to fall several times. She always was considered a klutz. At one point she skins her knee and now she can feel it bleeding inside her jeans. It wasn't deep enough to hurt terribly so she knows it will stop soon enough. She kept hiking, getting angrier at herself for following this silly instinct. She was gonna get hurt out here and no one would ever find her. She didn't have good enough cell signal out here to even alert her best friend. She sends a quick message to her anyway, hoping it might go through. All it said was that she was going on a hike and what park she started in. That way if she didn't talk to her by the end of the night someone would know she was missing.

She stops dead in her tracks as that word hits home. She looks all around her and realizes she's following this gut feeling and has no idea where she is, where she's gonna end up, or even how to get back. It's not like she's taken the straightest route. She had to crawl over rocks and around downed trees. What in the hell had she been thinking? But of course she knows she wasn't thinking. She barely had enough control to put her books in her car before starting this crazy journey. Then like a flash she remembered being five years old and her whole class surrounding her singing that stupid nursery rhyme that she hated so much. They had her close her eyes and tell them who was standing behind her. She always knew exactly who it was. It was the same feeling that was driving her forward now. She takes a deep breath, and she instantly knows she's going to be fine. This feeling has always been right. She can't start doubting it now.

She begins walking again, and her spirit feels lighter now. She knows this is where she is meant to go, and she'll find out why when she gets there. With a new spring in her step she finds herself humming silently to herself. Her knee has stopped hurting and she finds her eyes are drawn to the beauty of the forest around her. Little did she know that there were eyes in the forest that were watching her too.

The sun hasn't gone down but in the forest it is getting darker by the minute. She slows her steps and keeps her eyes down, trying not to fall again. She takes another step forward and sees green grass. She looks up and there is a huge tree, bigger than she's ever seen before. The roots look like they are woven and she finds herself climbing up them like steps until her hand rests on the behemoth of a tree.

Somehow, it feels warm under her touch and she smiles without realizing it. Her heart flutters softly, and the tree seems to be responding in kind. Her eyes close of their own volition and she hears herself sigh but it sounds so far away. Then a shrill and angry voice rips through the silence and she snaps back to reality.

"Finally after all these years you have brought back the jewel!"

She turns around to face the voice but loses her footing landing on her butt in the grass next to the tree. The monster she sees is enough to make her scream if only she could find the breath in her lungs to do it. A woman's torso with too many arms which turns into a long creepy crawly body with too many legs! She tries to shield herself but the gut feeling is back and it's screaming at her! It's never done that before, she's gotten inklings and sometimes it seemed like a whisper, but now it is screaming in her head. "Stand up, you must fight her!" Kagome struggles to her feet and has no idea how to fight this beast, but she glances around for some sort of weapon. Then she sees a light glow in her hand, it starts out as a small orb then she feels a hardness there that wasn't there before. The orb elongates into a long slightly curved form and solidifies into a bow.

The monster doesn't seem deterred in the slightest but Kagome's mouth is agape. She just watched a bow materialize in her hand. Now the voice in her head is strong and sure, "You must pull the string back and fire your raw energy. It will hit her. You must be sure of it." Kagome didn't take the time to doubt the voice in her head, it felt like a part of her and she has to believe that the woman is right. She pulls a nonexistent string back and a light materializes where the arrow should be. She releases a breath then releases her fingers, it all feels so natural. The monster lunges at her and the arrow strikes her and two of the human arms fall off from the monster's left side. It howls in pain but does not stop coming for her. Before kagome can redraw the string back it sinks its huge gaping maw into her side and she feels blood gushing.

The voice is soft and secretive. "That is where it was hidden on the last reincarnation. She thinks I will make the same mistake twice. I'm sorry you have to feel such pain, but I promise you will heal from this." Kagome can feel the woman in her head guiding her again, just like the pulling sensation in the park. She reaches down and grabs at the woman's face. The mouth that seems to stretch across the whole of her face is more than a little frightening, but she doesn't stop and she doesn't hesitate. She places her hands on either side of the woman's face and closes her eyes. She feels a pull of power from her heart, and releases it. The monster's screams seem so far away. But she can smell burning flesh and the acrid smell of singed hair makes her want to vomit. She feels herself fall shrd to the ground and her head bounces with a crack. The monster topples over in a loud thud that echoes throughout the forest. She feels herself falling asleep, and fights to open her eyes as the voice in her head demands, she tries so hard, but her whole body is tired. Everything hurts and she can't seem to obey like she did so many times earlier.

Inuyasha rarely went outside of his territory. If it wasn't for his asshole half brother he probably never would. But it was their job to find the reincarnation of the Shikon no Tama and it's protector. He knew this one was just gonna be another fake. The myth had grown so much in the last century that almost every single psychic and past lives therapist knew about it and assumed everyone who had the tiniest miko ability was the one. It has gotten way out of hand. Now that he's almost back to his forest he bids farewell to his brother who takes flight and turns into his dog form as Inuyasha runs at full speed in the same direction. Sesshomaru's territory is on the other side of Inuyasha's so he can get there faster if he flies, Inu being a half demon has a harder time turning into his dog form, he can do it, but it expends a great deal of energy which seems like a waste to him when he can run almost as fast as he could fly.

As he is running at breakneck speed through his forest, he smells a human. His senses are on full alert. Humans can't get passed his barrier. The monk assured him only those of incredible power could. Most low level demons couldn't even cross it, which is why it was there. They had to keep their presence hidden from the puny mortals. The last thing they needed was a full out war, when there was one already happening. That's why they needed to find the new reincarnation. Kaede said she had been born almost 2 decades ago, and she needed to be found to begin her training, and they had kept an eye on all the mikos training at every shrine, and they obviously checked out a million bogus ideas with anyone who had the slightest miko ability. But the issue was in this era children weren't tested for abilities anymore unless you came from a long line of priests or mikos. So it was highly likely the reincarnation had no idea she was extremely dangerous not to mention that she was the weapon foretold of in prophecy to end this fucking war.

He stalks slowly along until he sees a young girl with long black wavy hair, stumbling in the dark. The girl stops for a second and looks around, it looks like she's about to cry or something, and Inuyasha is about at his wits end. How in the hell did a weakling like this manage to get through the barrier, he was gonna murder the monk. Then it hit him, he catches her scent on the wind and he knows it's her. His first instinct is to run and grab her, but he knows it will scare her and they need her to trust them. She must've been guided out here for a reason. So he follows her keeping back enough so she doesn't sense him. She steps out to the clearing around the tree of ages, and as she climbs up to the tree his heart is pounding. This is where he and kikyo tried to fight what they hoped would be the final battle, but Kikyo died and the Shikon no Tama waited 5 centuries to resurface. Without it their side couldn't turn the tides, and with it gone from the world Naraku bided his time in the shadows, building up an army.

Inuyasha became so engrossed in his own thoughts he almost missed hearing the howl of Mistress Centipede. He is about to jump in when he sees her jaws clamp down on the girls side. FUCK! After 5 centuries of waiting and he already lost the fucking reincarnation! He is so angry with himself he can't see straight. He snaps out of it when a bright pink light explodes through the clearing and the smell of burnt hair, flesh, and blood hits him like a tidal wave. He sees the girls body fall to the ground and bounce twice. Her chest is still moving as she breathes and the breaths are coming steadily, but her eyes are closed as if she's asleep. He gently sniffs her over for other injuries and finds that she has a nasty cut on her knee, but nothing is as pressing as the hole in her side, or so he thinks. He pulls her shirt up enough to dress the wound but it seems the Shikon no Tama is already ahead of him and the skin is knit together perfectly. Not even a scar remains.

He lifts her gently and carries her towards his den. He'll alert his brother in the morning. The Shikon no Tama Miko has returned to this world, now his biggest hope was that she will stand with them in the war.


End file.
